“Look at me, Mr. Freeze, I’m an old man. I’ve created wonders in my lifetime, but there is still so much to do! I want to change as you have, to become like you—a being of blessed, eternal cold!”Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara) has escaped from Arkham Asylum, but Batman suspects this was less a breakout and more an abduction. After a visit with old associate Karl Rossum (William Sanderson), Batman follows the trail to Grant Walker (Daniel O’Herlihy), a theme park mogul with designs on introducing a new park – one to fuel his coldhearted utopian ambitions. His plans for Mr. Freeze are equally chilling, as he extorts the doctor with his cryogenically-frozen wife Nora as leverage.
I’ve seen this episode a few times, and once I get over the initial disappointment that “Deep Freeze” can’t compare to “Heart of Ice,” I usually come around to confessing that it’s a pretty good continuation of the redemptive reading of Mr. Freeze as a man of science tortured by his inability to save his wife. Put another way, it’s about as good a Mr. Freeze episode as you can do with a version of the character who is not unrepentantly evil, who leans more toward tortured than torturer. And in the same way that Mark Hamill’s Joker is so definitive that his very presence elevates any episode, Michael Ansara is killing it on every level as Mr. Freeze. His deadpan monologues nevertheless convey an acute sense of pain and loss.
“Deep Freeze” finds Mr. Freeze not in opposition to Batman but as his begrudging ally in battle against a more dangerous ideological foe. It’s striking to see Mr. Freeze terrified at the prospect of his involuntary exit from Arkham; his fear suggests that he’s apprehensive about his unknown ostensible rescuers, yes, but it also seems to imply that on some level he believes he deserves his incarceration. “I failed you,” he had said at the end of his debut episode; “I can only beg your forgiveness.” If he cannot find absolution in the arms of his wife, he will find his penitence in a penitentiary.
As I write this review, I find I’m talking myself more and more into liking this episode. It’s a Paul Dini/Bruce Timm joint (among the pantheon of the platonic ideals of Batman storytellers, if ever there was one), so perhaps that should come as no surprise. As ever, this episode of Batman: The Animated Series does a masterful job opposing its dichotomous images; Mr. Freeze postures as emotionless but demonstrates a profound care for his wife and fellow man, while Grant Walker pretends to be avuncular and welcoming but proposes instead a tyrannical world where his will reigns supreme. Batman, interestingly enough, is given fairly short shrift, providing the compulsory detective work but absent much else to do beyond encourage Mr. Freeze to reexamine his priorities.
One thing, however, needs to be said, and that’s the strange case of Grant Walker – namely, why is he a Walt Disney allegory? Between theme parks, imagineers (here, visioneers), and what feels like an extended reference to the urban legend that Disney was cryogenically frozen, this episode really pushes the comparison in a way that never feels insulting, but feels so on-the-nose that its specificity is downright peculiar. This is a peculiar axe to grind, but it would seem that there’s no malice behind the parallel. What, then, is the point of this? Dini was always more of a Looney Tunes guy than a Disney man, right down to his previous job as a writer on Tiny Toon Adventures. Its ultimate end, then, is mostly as a cranky curious footnote to the episode – and a distracting one, at that.
Perhaps sensing that Mr. Freeze didn’t get a full shake from appearing in only two episodes (though Clayface also received only a pair of stories, one was a two-parter), the showrunners and powers-that-be selected him as the primary antagonist for Batman and Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero. It’s a fine enough animated film, far beneath the status of Mask of the Phantasm and still never quite living up to the perfect crystalline promise of “Heart of Ice,” but we must remember, as the show says farewell to him, that BtAS did give us this particular iteration of Mr. Freeze. And that in itself is a finer feat than many shows manage to accomplish in their entire run.
Writers: Paul Dini and Bruce Timm
Director: Bruce Timm
Villains: Mr. Freeze (Michael Ansara) and Grant Walker (Daniel O’Herlihy)
Next episode: “Batgirl Returns,” in which a dynamic duet closes out the series.
🦇For the full list of Batman: The Animated Series reviews, click here.🦇
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